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Their mission? Cutting waste haste

By Aaron Curtis, acurtis@lowellsun.com

Updated:
07/15/2018 08:04:07 AM EDT

Kesiah Bascom of Dracut, founder and owner of OffBeet Compost, empties a bucket of compostable kitchen waste, which the company turns into compost. They serve businesses and individual residents alike. See video at lowellsun.com. SUN/Julia Malakie

DRACUT -- Vegetable and fruit scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds and spoiled food are often tossed into the garbage can, without much thought.

From there, it's off to the landfill, where these organic materials linger while decomposing. Aside from taking up space, the waste releases greenhouse gases that pollute the environment as it slowly breaks down.

These materials -- and many others sent to fester in landfills -- could instead be redirected from this wasteful and contaminating end, and turned into something valuable.

Enter the Greater Lowell-based company OffBeet Compost.

"It's something nature was already doing, and we were doing for a long time -- recycling our food back into the environment," said OffBeet Compost founder and owner Kesiah Bascom.

Kesiah Bascom, founder and owner of OffBeet Compost, and her significant other, Derrick Jamison, both of Dracut. OffBeet Compost picks up compostable kitchen waste, which the company turns into compost. SUN/Julia Malakie

"Somewhere along the way, we lost our path, and started sending things to landfills and incinerators. That's something that doesn't need to be done."

OffBeet Compost diverts household, restaurant and small business food scraps and other materials from going to waste facilities, like landfills and incinerators, according to Bascom. After collecting the materials, they are brought to a site in Haverhill where they go through a process of being broken down into nutrient-rich compost.

The compost is then redistributed to participants and sold to local farmers, gardeners and landscapers, and added to the soil.

The bucket's contents are picked up from the home weekly and the bucket is left behind.

There's also the drop-off plan and the business plan.

The drop-off plan allows customers to drop off food scraps at OffBeet locations, including Mill No. 5's Sunday Market, located at 250 Jackson St. in Lowell, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The drop-off plan costs $1 per pound of materials, or a $12.50 monthly membership. Again, to save money, customers can also sign up for the six-month drop-off plan at $11.25 per month, or the one-year plan at $10 per month.

With the business plan, participating businesses will get their choice of a 5-, 10-, 32- or 64-gallon bucket to gather compostable materials.

Participating businesses get one-month of material collection free, and also have the option to receive compost once a year to grow their own herbs and veggies.

"A lot of restaurants and companies aren't aware of how much they're throwing away," Bascom said.

Bascom, who grew up in an environmentally-conscientious home in Sunapee, New Hampshire, said approximately 60 tons of material have been collected by OffBeet Compost since the business began in early 2017.

The Environmental Protection Agency, an advocate of composting, states on its website that aside from cutting down on landfill space and greenhouse gases, the benefits include enhancing water and nutrition retention in soils, eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers, and helping with reforestation and habitat revitalization, among others.

The EPA website also states in 2014, U.S. residents recovered more than 23 million tons of municipal solid waste through composting.

"We consider ourselves more of a movement than just a business," said Bascom, who works OffBeet Compost with significant other Derrick Jamison. "We want to engage with each of our customers and make them feel like their part of a solution."

A growing piece of OffBeet Compost is an educational component, according to Bascom, who offers composting workshops and is developing an environmental justice curriculum.

"We also hope to eventually have an educational composting site, where people can come and see exactly the process of farm to table, to table back into the soil," the 31-year-old Dracut resident said. "I think it could be really powerful for people to be more connected with the entire process."

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